Richard Beymer

Twin Peaks is a show that’s fascinated with the female form. The pilot episode of the series is literally all about the female body, the wrapped-in-plastic form of Laura Palmer and whatever secrets surround this sad sight. And from there it only escalates. The seductive swaying of Audrey Horne to music only she can hear. Norma and Shelly hiding adultery behind their demure waitress outfits. The girls of One-Eyed Jack’s, dressed up and dealt to customers like hand of poker. The near-identical figures of Laura and her cousin Maddie. The unknown motivations and alluring figures of Josie Packard, Lana Budding Milford, Ms. Jones, even Evelyn Marsh. So many of the show’s plots place women front and center, relying on both their physical allure and their hidden depths to drive the story forward.

David Lynch and company are interested in asking many questions about the nature of good and evil, the soul, and the universe, discussions that play out in Cooper’s interest in Tibetan philosophy and the ambiguity of what BOB truly represents. Yet it’s also a show with a deep romantic streak

“Slaves And Masters” is an episode of Twin Peaks that’s ripe with the feeling of change. The plots that the show spent too much time on over the last few episodes are finally drawing to a close, and the mysterious figures—Windom Earle, Thomas Eckhardt, Andrew Packard—are emerging from the shadows.

One of the early ideas behind Twin Peaks was that the murder of Laura Palmer was never intend to be the central focus of the show for long—in fact, David Lynch and Mark Frost are often cited that if they’d had their way the murderer would never be revealed. Instead, it was meant as a mechanism to introduce us an audience into the world of Twin Peaks, meeting the various eccentrics and peeling back the curtain—red or otherwise—hanging over their secrets. The town would generate stories on its own, and eventually questions of Laura and her death would fade away into the ether.

The long-awaited revival of Twin Peaks returned from its own horrific limbo in the Black Lodge earlier this month, when David Lynch announced on Twitter that he’d worked out a deal with Showtime to honor his original commitment to direct the third season—only six weeks after he’d walked away from the project in a similarly public fashion. The news was met with universal acclaim and relief, because after being told this unique show was coming back, it felt wrong that the auteur from whose mind it sprang had to be involved to usher his creation into its next stage of life. They wanted to see it so much, in fact, that the show’s original actors even took to social media to offer character-specific similes on what losing him would mean to the show.